Is your organization able to achieve competitive advantage through operations?

Is your organization able to achieve competitive advantage through operations?

The first interpretation about the topic is usually related to creating a service, system, or product with unique advantage over competitors. Also, generating efficient and sustainable customer value can be brought as main focus to achieve competitive advantage.

However, the question is beyond the academic frame or market best practices. It is an invitation to a deep dive on your organization frame to check if procedures, rules, processes, and tools are properly synchronized. The reality for corporations with solid stablished procedures (but only large organizations) is that changes unavoidably impact cost and time, culminating with delays and procrastination on silos elimination or creating a fluid process performance.

In summary, operations management must consider how the “machine” is prepared to deal with the challenging market, and customer’s demands. Therefore, stablishing a strategy for differentiation, or unique customer value without fixing the lingering incompatibility among processes and tools would not be a brilliant strategy from an efficient operation manager.

In very simple words, understand your internal environment before targeting external ones.

Heizer, J. and Render, B. explain more details in their book (Operations Management, 14e), especially on chapiter 2 – Operations Strategy in a Global Environment.?

#Operations Management #Product Development?